


The Baphomet Ritual

by amclove



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Demon Shane Madej, Established Relationship, M/M, Swearing, i use the f word so much irl and it really shows in this lmao, oh honey you've got a big storm comin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amclove/pseuds/amclove
Summary: Prompt: “You never asked me if I was scared. You asked me if I trusted you, and damn it I did!”
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 15
Kudos: 593





	The Baphomet Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](https://cyanicas.tumblr.com/post/179121978056/you-never-asked-me-if-i-was-scared-you-asked-me) and a deep dive of my own into the world of the series [Supernatural](https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_Summoning)

_One of these, we’re gonna die._

Ryan really fucking hates being right.

Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. He means to say that he would prefer to not be right in this particular instance. This ‘particular instance’ being any time that he and Shane go out to film for _Unsolved_. Every single shoot is just like tossing the gauntlet out and not caring where it lands, even though ‘one of these’ it may very well stop right beside a fucking demon or malicious spirit.

“Fuck, dude. Fuck me,” Ryan mutters.

“Maybe later, buttercup,” Shane responds in kind, ever chipper. Ryan wants to shove his stupid face below water and wait for him to pass out.

“Asshole. Fuck. Okay.” He inhales. “You’re gonna be impressed with this one, I think.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shane comes to a slow halt beside where Ryan is beginning to empty the contents of his backpack. “Got some surprises in store, little guy?” Ryan snorts from his kneeling position on the ground. He’s sketching out an actual pentagram, with something else jotted inside, onto the basement’s cement flooring, and Shane lifts his eyebrows. “Uh, Ry’? Sure we’re allowed to be marking up the property like this?”

“It’s chalk, Professor Dunce; with a bit of water it’ll wipe right off after we’re done here,” Ryan assures him and the cameras. He starts to distribute candles evenly along the joint points of the pentagram and Shane shifts a tad uneasily.

“What're you up to, Bergara? What’s goin’ on in that cute chipmunk head of yours?”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan says automatically, but it’s more of a _Stop distracting me_ than a middle finger. Shane closes his mouth but continues to watch Ryan’s movements as he works, deliberate and precise. He hadn’t been joking; he really had done deep-dive research for this. Nothing legitimate, surely. Because that’d be… just too out of character.

Not to say that Ryan isn’t meticulous when it comes to his case files, but generally the websites he manages to find start with ‘Wiki’ and end with ‘how.’ Nothing to worry over. Shane, for now, brushes this off as the same old and simply observes.

“Makin’ some guac’, Ryan?” Shane asks, swallowing as he sees Ryan carefully integrating several ingredients into a mixing bowl, wooden spoon in hand.

“Not to shit on my chef skills, but I’m pretty sure this’ll taste like actual manure if you tried to eat it,” Ryan says, and he sounds enough like his usual bantery self that Shane cracks a grin back at him.

“I’ll try anything once, baby,” he jokes with a customary flirtatious wink, to which Ryan gives an eyeroll. “So uh, come on, loop me in here. What’s the rub tonight?”

“I’m gonna summon a demon,” Ryan says simply, and to his credit his voice shakes only minimally.

“You’re gonna what?”

“I’m gonna summon—”

“I heard you,” Shane interjects, and he just barely keeps his gaze from flitting anxiously to the crew and cameras that are watching the interaction. “Ryan, you do realize one of your biggest fears in the entire known world happens to be, you guessed it—demons. Right? You know that?”

“Yeah, Shane, I had an inkling,” Ryan retorts. “But, like, in all the times we’ve done this I can count on one hand how many legit encounters we’ve had. So I did a hard dive into the web, found a ritual, and I’m doing it. The whole point of the sigil is to bind the demon; it’s not like it can get out if this actually works.”

A nugget of panic, frankly revolting in and of itself, rises in Shane’s chest and he swats it away like a pesky fruit-fly. “Ryan, buddy.” He pauses and looks to the crew. “Would you guys mind giving us a minute?”

“Shane, no, I—”

“The candles will stay lit for another few minutes, Ryan,” Shane says, his nerves coating his words in a layer of sarcasm. He assures the crew that they’ll be fine, and off they go with the cameras. Shane takes in a breath like he hadn’t taken one forever. Subtly, of course. “Look, Ry’—”

“What the fuck, dude?” Ryan demands. “I have a shot here. And it’s not like you believe in this shit anyway; what’s it matter to you if I give it a go? Mr. Rip My Cheekbones Bones Out Through My Asshole?”

“Okay, a lot to unpack there,” Shane says, hoping to lighten the mood. It doesn’t. “Okay,” he repeats. “I just don’t know if you’re thinking this one through. Whatever the fuck you’ve got cookin’ here looks like some serious business and, to be honest, I’m a little worried an extremist faction from the Church of Satan is going to come to GhoulHQ and burn you alive for even attempting this. Isn’t it like, sacrilege or something?”

“Shane, what the fuck are you talking about right now?” Ryan asks, jaw dropped in complete disbelief. “Fucking every Goddamn thing we do for this show is sacrilege! Why are you so concerned _now_?”

This is so not how Shane pictured his Thursday night going down. Maybe a little ghoul hunting with his bestie, pizza for dinner if he played his cards right, a little smoochin’ if he played his cards _extra_ right, but this? Not what he’d planned.

“Unless you know something I don’t,” Ryan says. And God, Shane hates that he can all but see the gears ticking into action in his boyfriend’s stupid, brilliant head.

“What?” Shane huffs. “Ryan, come on.”

“No, you come on. Have you seen this before, somehow? Do you know that it works and you don’t want me to get us killed? Cuz I gotta be honest, I’m blanking on any other valid reason why I shouldn’t pull out my nifty case file and read out the incantation to summon a fucking demon right now.”

“You are so unbelievably dense, you know that?” Shane snaps. Ryan actually takes a step back, hurt at Shane’s words, and Shane sighs. “Ryan.”

“No, please. Tell me how you really feel. No cameras. You don’t have to play the exasperated-but-fond boyfriend.”

“That isn’t what this is, Ryan; come on. You know it isn’t.”

“Then fucking give me a real reason against doing this ritual.”

Shane takes in Ryan’s face, the sheen of sweat present there since they’d stepped foot on the grounds, his wide, dark eyes questioning. He loves Ryan and his manic giggle more than most anything else, has for years now, and even then he knows it won’t be enough after he tells Ryan the truth.

“It works,” he says.

“The ritual?” A nod. “And do you care to tell me how you know that?” Ryan asks, and he almost sounds excited under the annoyance, like the answer could be the breakthrough they’ve been waiting for all this time. In a way, it is, but in another much realer sense, they’re both so fucked that a supernatural confirmation probably won’t mean jack-shit.

“Ryan…”

“Shane.”

“I know it works because it was used on me,” Shane says, and it’s finally out there. It is what it is. Ryan stands still, almost appearing unperturbed.

“We’re still talking about the ritual? The demon-summoning ritual? It worked on you… because you’re…”

“Almost there,” Shane murmurs.

“You’re a…” Another step back, and Shane feels it in his gut. “No.”

“Ryan,” Shane says again.

“No, I would’ve— _known_.” Ryan eyes lift from the floor back up to Shane. “I would have fucking known if my boyfriend was an agent of Hell. Get real.”

“Ryan, listen to me, alright? The stuff you normally use is bullshit. Total hogwash. So you stumbling into this has never been a concern; cut to twenty minutes ago and watching you pull some scarily legit looking props from that backpack of yours.” Ryan’s eyes are saucers and Shane knows that if he doesn’t get this out fast, he won’t have another chance. “It’s the same setup from when I was summoned 56 years ago, the same ritual that’s kept me tethered to earth for over _half a century_. It’s not a joke ritual, it is very much real, and if you use it, I can’t tell you what’s going to show up in this basement with us.”

Ryan’s chest is heaving, but remarkably, he isn’t making a sound. Which, to be fair, is almost worse.

“Probably nothing as warm and cozy as me, to be sure,” Shane adds. He lets out some air. “Ryan. Please say something.”

“Are you _fucking kidding me_?” Ryan’s voice is harsh, biting. Shane is almost impressed. “You tell me you’re a demon and I’m supposed to have a prepared speech?”

“Well, actually—”

“No, you don’t get to joke your way out of this one,” Ryan says, taking two huge steps forward and prodding Shane directly in the chest. “Not a chance. All this time, all these years, you never thought to mention one crucial detail about the guy I let into my bed?”

“Okay, but—”

“Don’t talk,” and Shane shuts up. “Into my bed. Into my _heart_.” His voice does crack then, just a smidge. “You manipulated me.”

“Ryan, I didn’t, I swear to God.”

Ryan laughs out loud. “Oh, for real? That’s like—like, well, exactly what it is. A demon swearing on God. As in it means _absolutely nothing_. You fucking idiot. You’ve lied to me since the literal day we met—”

“Because I knew you couldn’t handle it! Come on, Ryan; what was I supposed to have done? Introduced myself with, ‘Hey, I’m Shane; I’m a demon, but the fun kind’? You yourself said there’s no such beast as a fun demon!”

“Don’t turn this on me!” Ryan barks. “Up until that point—up until _five fucking minutes_ _ago_ —demons were pretty much a hypothetical. Excuse me for profiling a species I didn’t know for sure existed; fucking oops, my bad.”

“Ryan, don’t be an asshole. I did it for your own good—”

“No, Shane, you did it for you. You were too scared to lose me.” Ryan laughs another humorless laugh.

“I knew _you’d_ be scared of _me_!” Shane shouts. “Of a part of me that I don’t even think about half the time because it’s—it’s so secondary to everything else I’ve got going.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me, and you therefore never asked me if I was scared. All along you only ever asked if I _trust_ you, and damn it, Shane—I did!” Ryan cracks again, and then he’s welling up with tears. “You prick. I trusted _you_ , metaphorical warts and all. You’d think even a demon would have the decency to tell the guy he… to…”

Shane crouches down beside where Ryan has fallen onto his ass to the left of the forgotten Baphomet symbol. “I wasn’t going to tell you, probably ever,” Shane says honestly. “I knew it would only hurt you and—”

“You didn’t know,” Ryan snaps. “You don’t know how anyone will react until they do _._ You never even gave me the chance to deal with it until it was forced out of you. Great job, on that front.”

“Ryan…”

“Stop fucking saying my name like that,” Ryan orders. “I’m not five. Jesus; is it in your job description to be so Goddamn condescending all the time?”

“Well, my Buzzfeed contract specified that I patronize you at least twice a day,” Shane says immediately, and it’s enough to surprise a genuine laugh out of Ryan. “As for Hell, not so much.”

Ryan wipes his nose with his sleeve, a habit Shane hates and which usually gets a tissue handed exasperatedly his way, and he looks at Shane with shiny eyes.

“So you’re a fun demon, huh?”

“The _most_ fun.”

“Do you keep them away? All these shoots we’ve done, are you the reason we can’t seem to find jack-shit?”

Shane pretends to be thoughtful, then says, “Some things are best left unsolved, don’t you think?”

Ryan wheezes and shoves at his chest. “Oh, you piece of shit, Shane. This isn’t over.”

The taller man laughs with him and pulls Ryan to his feet. He habitually drops a kiss to Ryan’s hair and freezes when he feels Ryan stiffen under his hands.

“Sorry,” he says, and it hurts to apologize for something he used to do so freely. “If you don’t… Well, I get if you—”

“‘The Demon Who Loved Me’ could be a cool spin-off BUN series,” Ryan says, mock-serious. “I think it could be a real hit.”

“Ryan,” Shane says, and Ryan’s smiling but just a little. “Is this actually… okay? You’re not going to—I don’t know, drench me in holy water or call Father Thomas for words of wisdom?”

“Lucky for you, I still love your idiot ass,” Ryan admits, and he sounds a little surprised to say so. “But you’re on thin fucking ice.”

“Hey.” Shane catches Ryan’s hand and holds it softly. “I was so terrified to tell you. For real. Losing you… I…”

“Hey,” Ryan says back, squeezing Shane’s hand. “I know. We’ll be okay.” He gives Shane a last soft smile before bending down to start cleanup. “Especially now that I know ghouls and all that shit is actually for real. I’m floating on air, baby!”

“Lord, give me strength.”


End file.
